If anyone reading this has ever met me, you’d think by looking at me I was a body builder who had eschewed the normal carb free diet of protein shakes and steroids in favour of one of scrumpy, pasties, and brie, and to be honest, that’s not too far from the truth. Despite that, I have low cholesterol, and such healthy blood that every four weeks or so I give 3 units of platelets and one of plasma to help my fellow man. This process involves being attached to a filtration machine for an hour and a half, and my normal practice is to plug in my earphones and read a good book as the process occurs. Well, just a few hours before starting to type this review, I attended the hospital donation centre as usual, turned on the iPod (other brands of MP3 are available), and settled down. Next thing I knew I was being shaken by the nurse and as I looked up into her panicked face she said “sorry, you looked so blissed out I thought you’d fainted!” The reason for my so nearly obtaining a state of nirvana folks? ‘Flesh Throne Press’ by Pombagira!
Despite a not inconsiderable recording history, ‘Flesh Throne Press’ is the first time I’ve ever heard anything by Pombagira, and damn me if it isn’t epically good. Track one, ‘The Way’, starts with a wall of down tuned darkness laden guitar feedback, promising an Electric Wizard like doom battering, but when the vocals kick in at about the one minute twenty mark, there is a magical transformation as the album mutates seamlessly into just about the most mellow and hypnotic slice of psychedelic meanderings I have heard in a bloody long time. This wave of peace merges into the simple stripped back joy of ‘The Way’, its vocals, chanted like a monastic lament sounding like the heady early days of Pink Floyd, the band making it so easy to just drift away with them on their sonic voyage.
With a double album that stretches out to some eighty minutes, featuring epic tracks like the fifteen minute plus ‘In The Silence’, it’s all too easy to get lost in the sound the band seemingly effortlessly creates, each track flowing one into the other, snaking soothingly through the labyrinth of the mind, leaving in its wake a calm tranquillity. Whilst some bands may attempt such a feat, it can be that the music would wash over you without leaving an impression; Pombagira’s music doesn’t do this, rather it picks you up and carries you along with it like a leaf on a gently flowing river. With the stream of consciousness that the sound follows, it becomes hard to pick one track out from the next as all are mixed together by the band like alchemists of old creating a magic formula from secret ingredients. Yes there are familiar elements to the album, and it would be easy to imagine some of the long instrumental breaks being played by The Doors as The Lizard King spun slowly about the stage. It would be equally as easy to imagine Captain Brock and his space rock cohorts summoning forth the likes of ‘Sorcerous Cry’ to the background of a full on Hawkwind light show, but added to the whole is the dreamy, indefinable mesmeric presence that Pombagira thread throughout each skilfully crafted track that adds something mystical to the whole.
I’ve never seen this band live, but I imagine if I ever did, and I will be trying to make that happen, I’ll be stood enraptured by the music, gently swaying along to the beat. This is not the music of flying hair, pumping fists, and a swirling pit. Rather it is music for you to turn on, tune in, and in the official medical parlance, get “blissed out.” Sublime.
(9/10 Spenny)
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